Thursday, December 25, 2025

Heritage's Crackup; Bari's Blunder

More trouble in MAGAville:

Nearly the entire legal and economic policy staff of the Heritage Foundation is departing the conservative think tank, and many will be taking up posts at Advancing American Freedom (AAF), a nonprofit founded in 2021 by former Vice President Mike Pence. The mass exodus represents a dramatic rebuke of Heritage President Kevin Roberts in the wake of his refusal to retract an October video defending Tucker Carlson for conducting a friendly interview with the antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes.

Posted by A_Friend at 11:34 AM | 2 COMMENTS | permalink

Comments

snip ...

It's hard to overstate the impact that Heritage has played in modern American conservativism, or its devolution into MAGAism. (I devoted a chapter to Heritage's decline in my 2017 book, "How the Right Lost Its Mind.")

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Pence accused the group of "abandoning its principles."

He said the foundation had "fallen" because it had embraced elements of isolationism, stopped backing Ukraine in the war with Russia, supported some tariffs and backed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, among other things.

Obviously, notes of caution are in order: Reaganism isn't about to make a comeback, and Mike Pence is unlikely to rise from the GOP dead.

#1 | Posted by A_Friend at 2025-12-25 11:36 AM

snip ...

But, but, but, the implosion of the Heritage Foundation is nevertheless a thing of beauty and a joy at least for this week. And it is yet another sign of the divisions simmering within the conservative cult.

In an editorial headlined, "The Heritage Foundation Blows Up," The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes:

Heritage once supported free trade; now it is protectionist. It once supported a robust American foreign policy; Heritage purged its defense hawks two years ago. Heritage was a supporter of the originalist judicial revolution and the rule of law; now it defends Mr. Trump's expansion of executive power whether or not it has a constitutional basis ... .

Heritage abandoned its principles, it is losing its people, and soon there might not be much left to donate to.


Exit take: We tried to warn them, and we're going to keep on sounding the alarm, standing athwart the crazy and shouting, "You can't be serious."

#2 | Posted by A_Friend at 2025-12-25 11:38 AM

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